shells on the shore, alone near the sea
by cowpiss
Summary: The Mayor sleeps while Isabelle contemplates. Oneshot.


**shells on the shore, alone near the sea**

 **edit (19/06/17): i read over this and its painfully** **embarrassing. like, wow me fix ur grammar. and its come to me that people still occasionally read this so ive just cleaned it up. added a bit of this and that. everything is still the same, just nicer to look at.**

 **Summary: The Mayor sleeps while Isabelle contemplates. Oneshot.**

* * *

Isabelle watches waves splash against the shore, leaving gifts of shells and corals. She keeps a watchful eye on the fish that swim about, occasionally stopping near the shore, as though greeting the secretary with wiggling fins. Sometimes, she gives a toothy smile. She waves back at the fish who swim away back to their nestled homes in the sea.

Smiling, she wanders up near the waves, feeling the crunch of sandy grains beneath her paws. The sand softly squeezes between her toes, sticking onto her fur in slightly uncomfortable ways. Right in front the slow and ever gentle tides, she sits. Her mind fills with sea noises and seagulls and sea fish and all the wonderful things that come with the sea. Isabelle let her paws feel the lull of the ocean, tickling her toes.

The secretary dog takes out a pocketed shell and touches the smooth edge. She caresses the small bumps with furry paws—

(She is reminded of them.)

Some sand still sticks to the peach-coloured shell in between its nooks and crannies—

(They weren't supposed to be mayor, she knows now.)

Against her ear, the ocean call. Like it always does when she feels melancholy and cold. It whispers of happiness and joy. It sings of the cold water against her paws, licking down on her fur, sticking it to her skin—

(They were an amazing mayor, she thinks to herself, laughing lightly in remembrance.)

The young secretary lays on her back, sand shifting about. Her ears flop to the side with a gentle thud.

She remembers it so, so, _so_

clearly.

 _Painfully clearly._

See this:

A young person steps off the train, ready for their adventure, a life on their own. Around, they spot animals—

(So different from them. They're human, furless and smooth. Like the beak of an eagle, but soft like wool of a lamb. That is a strange simile.)

—that cheer happily for their mayor. They're confused, she recognises, so confused. They never wanted to be mayor—

(Isn't that an odd notion. They were amazing at being a mayor, they were The Mayor, really.)

—yet they did, despite it all.

(The Mayor seemed to be having so much fun.)

 _Were they having fun?_ She thinks, grimly.

Fun.

Yes, she decides, they were having fun. They had fun decorating clothes, talking to villagers, bringing over the occasional friend, helping animals, suggesting nicknames, reading fortune cookies, making plans, just...just walking around at two in the morning, when all but one animal was awake, going about their day to day business and listening to the crickets sing. Bobbing their head to the sound of midnight's music box, in the rain without an umbrella, eating apples along the way, catching an unusual fish, or by turns, bug.

They were having so much fun. Every day they would wake up.

 _Were._

One day—

(It hurts to think of it.)

The Mayor doesn't wake up.

(That's okay. It happens sometimes. She shoves it to the back of her head, smothers it down into the sand she loves to walk on. Fills her on mind with the Sea, placing the shell against her ear.)

The next day they miss an appointment with a villager.

(That's okay. It happens sometimes.)

The next day, when the mysterious seller of paintings arrives—and she isn't sure what he calls himself, just that The Mayor always buys from him—they don't leave their house.

(That's okay...)

It stays like that, for a week.

(It happens sometimes...)

It is almost Christmas, she thinks at some point—how much time has passed? They will wake with messy bed head and cockroaches all through their house. They will go on a shopping spree and order in a lot from Tom. They will pull out weeds at every step they take, and water every flower they see. They will talk to everyone they know, and all the new villagers who have arrived. They will mourn those who left because they wanted to move on. They move on because the Mayor is not here and they miss them and they wept as they left and…and The Mayor will just be here.

(But they don't.)

Isabelle rolls onto her belly, ignoring the sand that collects onto her fur and clothes She buries her face into the it to hide the tears that threaten to fall.

 _The Mayor will never wake up._

(They never do.)

* * *

One day, years later, there is a quiet hum in the air. Like the shell she knows, whispering words of joy and happiness. For a moment, she thinks _finally_. They have returned. They are back and alive and ready for all the things they missed. The room is dark. She sees them standing across from her.

They look different. Younger and...different. They still have that beak-wool skin, that is furless, with hair only atop their head, that's soft and sways with every motion.

But...

It is not The Mayor she knows, but she greets them as she did

for them.

* * *

She wakes up from a restless sleep, thinking of the peculiar dream. It tears at her heart. The lullaby is quieter than usual, but she thinks about it more than she has ever before.

Isabelle leaves her house, like she always does. But—

Everything is different. The split of the river, the placement of the bridge (and, there is only one bridge. She knows The Mayor built two more), her home, and just about everything else. Reverted to before The Mayor made everything perfect. Changed like a shift in the ground below.

Villagers—

(They aren't the villages she knows. Some of them are different, some of them already moved out, promising to never return, finding a life away from the village.)

—meet her as she follows the gentle lull, motioning her to follow a streamlined path, a look of confusion pasted on her face.

* * *

A young person steps out.

Everyone is cheering.

(As does Isabelle, but she is muddled, mind crashing in disorder.)

* * *

They settle down in a house.

It is old and not as great as the one she knows. It is nostalgic, though.

(She is so, so sad.)

* * *

They bring her a shell, like she asks for when they ask for advice.

It is a different shell then the one that lays nestled inside the warmth of her pocket. It is larger, with less cracks running through it. The pumps are more frequent and it spirals into a point.

The new mayor's (the different mayor's) actions are nostalgic. Very.

* * *

They are not The Mayor. They are different. They like wearing different colours, and plant flowers in different places, and collect different shells.

They are not The Mayor, but one day...

Isabelle smiles at the figure who runs through the rain, before sitting awkwardly to look up at the aurora in the sky.

.

.

.

They might be.

.

* * *

.

 **END.**

.

* * *

 **ayy thanks anyone who read this. i genuinely thought isabelle was written isabel this whole time so if theres an isabel in there ull know why**

 **isabelle deserves better yknow i love her so so much**

 **i dedicate this story to my long forgotten animal crossing towns**


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